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“But it would have beenyours. It would have been your effort and your mistakes and it would have been made with love and blood. It would have been more precious to me because of that. It would have beentrue. It would have told me you trusted me.”
“I do trust you.” She would rip open her chest and show him how her heart beat only for him, if she could.
“Do you? Prove it. Say you’ll marry me and stay.”
She hesitated.
“Here,” he added. “At my estates, and in London. It’s not the adventure you envisaged, but I swear to you it will still be an adventure. Together.”
She wanted that. She did. But she also wanted the life she’d been promising herself since she was a child. New places, different languages, being lost and found, and discovering something new each day. Far-flung countries that did things in different ways.
Her throat closed up, unable to express this longing, and the need to have Emmett too. Selfish. She was so selfish.
“With us. With our family, you and me, and any children we might be blessed with,” he continued when she didn’t reply. “There will be new challenges every day, and we’ll travel with the business, occasionally. I promise you won’t be bored. There will always be something new to do or see.”
“Emmett, I…” Anything she said would be unutterably hurtful when he was offering her so much, and yet not as much as yesterday.
“Last night, we made love and I’m so sorry I got carried away. But it wasn’t casual for me.” His voice had gone as rough and soft and raw as the back of her embroidery. “Don’t try to tell me that meant nothing to you.”
“It meant a lot,” she whispered. “But not enough for me to abandon my dreams.”
He couldn’t ask that of her. She’d wanted to travel and see the world since she was a child looking at her father’s books and tracing her finger over a globe.
His mouth went into a hard line. “You’re expecting me to give up on my duty?”
“You said yesterday…” He’d said he loved her. How could he be so unfeeling now? “This is not the same thing.” Hurt morphed into anger. “You said you loved me. If you did, you’d forgive me and honor what you promised yesterday, and not expect me to relinquish everything over one trivial mistake.”
“If only it were trivial. You don’t trust me. You haven’t told me the truth.” He shook his head. “How can I leave my family when they need me most, for a woman who clearly neither needs nor wants me? I know I said I could, but that was when I thought you loved me. It’s one thing giving up all my duties for a woman who loves me in return, it’s quite another to be lied to and yanked around like a dog on a leash.”
“It’s not like that!”
“Isn’t it? Because it feels a lot like it. You lied about liking embroidery because you didn’t trust me to keep your secret, even though I kept every other one. And then you led me on with that damn pillow because you could lie to me and I would never realize, being so besotted. Even after everything, you continued lying to me. You could have told me any day this month, but you didn’t. I love you. But without trust between us, it’s not enough.”
And with that soft imperative, he left.
CHAPTER14
29th December1817
“I regret to say,I’ve come to kill you,” Duke announced casually as he strode into Emmett’s study three days later. “And I’d be grateful if we could deal with this in an expeditious fashion, as I have a marriage proposal to make.”
Emmett stared.
“Not to you,” Duke clarified. “I told you if you hurt my sister, I would kill you.” Duke spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Here I am. Neither of us wanted to be in this situation, I don’t doubt. But Gina is devastated, and a promise is a promise. Would you prefer pistols—not at dawn please, I haven’t the time to wait—or maybe I can poison your drink?” Duke picked up Emmett’s glass and sniffed. “Bloody early for the brandy, isn’t it old pal?”
“I haven’t drunk it yet.” But he intended to, as soon as his stomach would allow.
“It’s ten in the morning,” Duke stated. “You’re a goddamn mess over an embroidered cushion.”
“Not the cushion. The lie.” Emmett looked away from Duke as he felt his chest break open yet again. “She lied to me all summer that she was making me a gift, making me think she cared for me. I asked her to be truthful, and not keep secrets from me, and she couldn’t even tell me about her fake embroidery.”
“May I suggest that either you start seeing some sense, in which case I can reduce the death sentence down to merely a horrible maiming, or you just pen a suicide note and I’ll bring you the rat poison.” Duke leaned over Emmett’s desk with a scowl.
“Good to see where your loyalty lies,” Emmett grumbled. “I thought we were best friends, and now you’re marrying without even telling me the lady’s name.”
“I was home to get a ring and… No. We’re not talking about me. The question at hand is why aren’t you marrying my sister, Gina?”
“Spring wedding,” he drawled cynically. “By which time she’ll be long gone to Mongolia, Russia, Egypt, or Australia. Probably Siam. That was where she wanted to go first. Anyway, what do you care? You were against this engagement from the first.” He ought to have listened to Duke. Then, perhaps, his heart wouldn’t be a pulverized mess.
